CHICAGO — Victims of the Highland Park shooting have filed multiple lawsuits naming the alleged shooter, Robert Crimo III, Smith & Wesson, two firearms dealers and Crimo’s father as the parties who bear responsibility for eruption of gun violence that killed seven and wounded dozens of others during the northern suburb’s Independence Day parade.
The lawsuits, to be discussed at a news conference later Wednesday, are the latest in the ongoing debate in the U.S. courts over who bears responsibility for the death and injury caused by firearms in this country.
The lawsuits name Robert Crimo Jr., the alleged shooter’s father, for helping his son obtain the gun permit card that he needed to purchase the Smith & Wesson M&P15 rifle that authorities say the younger Crimo used when he opened fire from atop a building along the parade route, according to one of the complaints, which was filed in Lake County Circuit Court on Tuesday.
The lawsuit also alleges that Crimo’s father knew his son was a “clear and present danger” when he sponsored him.
The allegations in the filings also clarify how Crimo obtained the weapon, saying he purchased it from an out-of-state online seller and picked it up at a Lake County gun shop.
According to the lawsuit, Crimo is described as a “21-year-old obsessed with violence” and also names firearms dealers Bud’s Gun Shop in Lexington, Kentucky, and Red Dot Arms Inc. in Lake County as defendants.
Crimo ordered the rifle he used from Bud’s and picked it up at Red Dot, which facilitated the legal transfer, the lawsuit said. Both businesses knew Crimo had an address in Highland Park, the lawsuit said, and that he was a “resident of a municipality that prohibited the possession of such weapons.”
“Nevertheless, they proceeded with the sale and transfer, enabling the Shooter to carry out his deadly mission,” the lawsuit reads.
“For years, Smith & Wesson, Bud’s Gun Shop, Red Dot Arms, and other entities in the gun industry have, through their misconduct and illegal practices, been able to profit off the actions of disturbed and hate-filled young men like the Shooter,” the lawsuit reads. “They, like the Shooter’s Father, willfully ignored the public’s right to be safe from violence by placing a weapon of war into the Shooter’s hands. All of these actors must be held accountable for the massacre at Highland Park’s Fourth of July Parade.”
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